Published 4:00 am, Sunday, September 5, 2004

The crowd of thousands cheer as the Burning Man is burns to the ground, at the 18th annual Burning Man Celebration, Sat. Sept 4, 2004, at Black Rock Desert. People gather at Black Rock desert for the 18th annual Burning Man celebration, Saturday Sept.4, 2004, .
LACY ATKINS/ The Chronicle less

The crowd of thousands cheer as the Burning Man is burns to the ground, at the 18th annual Burning Man Celebration, Sat. Sept 4, 2004, at Black Rock Desert. People gather at Black Rock desert for the 18th ... more

Photo: LACY ATKINS

Image 2 of 8

Chris Verdugo and Gene Hubert cry as they comfort each other in the Temple of Star at Burning Man , Sat. Sept. 4, 2004, in the Black Rock Desert. " This place will suck all the negative energy out of you if youi just let it", said Hubert. of People gather at Black Rock desert for the 18th annual Burning Man celebration, Saturday Sept.4, 2004, .
LACY ATKINS/ The Chronicle less

Chris Verdugo and Gene Hubert cry as they comfort each other in the Temple of Star at Burning Man , Sat. Sept. 4, 2004, in the Black Rock Desert. " This place will suck all the negative energy out of you if ... more

Photo: LACY ATKINS

Image 3 of 8

Arthur Zolalkowski and Ola Tonder from Chicago hold each other after walking through the Temple of Star at Burning Man , in the Balck Rock Desert, Sat, Sept.4, 2004. People gather at Black Rock desert for the 18th annual Burning Man celebration, Saturday Sept.4, 2004, .
LACY ATKINS/ The Chronicle less

Arthur Zolalkowski and Ola Tonder from Chicago hold each other after walking through the Temple of Star at Burning Man , in the Balck Rock Desert, Sat, Sept.4, 2004. People gather at Black Rock desert for the ... more

Photo: LACY ATKINS

Image 4 of 8

"World Peace Begins at Home" is a thought someone wrote on The Temple of Star, at Burning Man, Sat. Sept.4, 2004, in Black Rock Desert.The Temple Of Star, is a place where people write their thoughts and wishes so that when it is burned Sunday night the energy makes them come true. People gather at Black Rock desert for the 18th annual Burning Man celebration, Saturday Sept.4, 2004, .
LACY ATKINS/ The Chronicle less

"World Peace Begins at Home" is a thought someone wrote on The Temple of Star, at Burning Man, Sat. Sept.4, 2004, in Black Rock Desert.The Temple Of Star, is a place where people write their thoughts and wishes ... more

Photo: LACY ATKINS

Image 5 of 8

Monique Schoenfeld of Santa Cruz, CA rides a giant rocking horse, one of many interactive art installations at the Burningman counter culture arts festival in the Black Rock Desert 100 miles north east of Reno, NV, Friday, Sept 3, 2004.(Photo Scott Sady/Reno, Gazette-Journal) less

Monique Schoenfeld of Santa Cruz, CA rides a giant rocking horse, one of many interactive art installations at the Burningman counter culture arts festival in the Black Rock Desert 100 miles north east of Reno, ... more

2004-09-05 04:00:00 PDT Gerlach, Nev. -- The circular, spaceship-like vehicle buzzed across the desert surface, stopped at a crowd of wildly dressed people, and suddenly whirled on its axis, faster and faster like a spinning disk, its occupants laughing wildly.

The unusual vehicle was just another spectacle, another piece of wild weirdness at Burning Man.

The annual weeklong festival of art, fire and partying on the Black Rock Desert of northwest Nevada culminates this weekend, pushing the boundaries between the highbrow and lowbrow, between technological geekiness and sheer hedonism.

Some of the most cutting-edge experiments get little notice, as high-tech designers of the circular vehicle found out. Kevin McDonald, its co-inventor, said his craft is the first of its kind anywhere because it has no front or back and can drive in any direction, with its computer-controlled wheels turning independently of each other.

For McDonald and his co-inventor, Simon Winder, who invested $15,000 into the project, it's a labor of love.

There are few venues to experiment with this sort of thing, McDonald, a mechanical engineer from Seattle, said as he navigated his craft between semidressed festival participants and the art installations dotting the desert floor.

"Where else are you going to do it, a parking lot?" he said. "Here there's a huge surface. It's a great atmosphere. You can cut loose and see what you're capable of."

A total of 35,664 people attended this year's Burning Man, according to a preliminary count Saturday morning. The number is a record high for the event, which began as a small gathering on San Francisco's Baker Beach in 1986. The high point is the scheduled Saturday night burn of the Man, the 80-foot-tall wood-and-neon totemic figure that is consumed in flames before a frenzied crowd.

Other high-tech structures include a huge laser sending lights thousands of feet into the sky, a large Tin Man that comes to life when touched, and numerous exhibits that use light, computers and mirrors to play with viewers' perceptions of space, depth and time.

"A lot of the art this year has a scientific or technological complexity that makes it harder for average people to appreciate than previous years," said Maya Draisin, a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission. Draisin, a digital media expert who is spending her third year at Burning Man, said the festival is the nation's best venue for fire arts and technology.

Impromptu happenings appear and disappear at the turn of one's head, and any random moment could produce, for example, a Mad Max-style vehicle shooting long ribbons of fire or a band of zoot-suited hipster mariachis playing "Happy Birthday to You."

For many participants, Burning Man is simply the world's wildest, biggest party, with few rules and fewer boundaries.

The festival's organizers take pride in the event's philosophy of "radical inclusiveness," in which nonconformity brings a tremendous diversity in festival attendees.

On Friday afternoon, several thousand women created a chaotic parade as they rode their bicycles topless around the camp. The event, a Burning Man- style takeoff of San Francisco's Critical Mass rides, brought hordes of male onlookers. Many male hipsters seemed to get the feminist vibe, yelling, "Go sisters!" Those in the Budweiser crowd had other ideas, yelling, "Take it all off!"

Many newcomers, however, appeared genuinely intrigued with the atmosphere of complete freedom.

"It's, uh, fascinating," said one first-time participant, Scott Bensing, chief of staff for Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. Bensing, who was attending from Washington with his wife and children on what he called "semiofficial, semipersonal business," looked a bit out of place in his neat khaki shorts and sport shirt.

But after receiving Burning Man's equivalent of a VIP tour, in which festival organizers exhaustively explained their medical and emergency services, their cooperation with local and federal law enforcement, the festival's low crime rate and its contribution to the local economy, he smiled cautiously as his family gawked at a troupe of body-painted clowns.

"Most people in Nevada think this is just a counterculture event, but that's gradually changing," he said, speaking slowly and cautiously. "And (festival organizers) have a very good relationship with the BLM, so that's very important," he said, referring to the federal Bureau of Land Management, owner of the Black Rock Desert.

Burning Man is generally not a political event, so the several dozen individuals and groups doing voter registration made this year's event unusual.

Organizers appear to be going to great lengths to play up the highbrow and downplay the debauchery. The event's founder and director, Larry Harvey, said he is also encouraging environmentally friendly practices, including the use of bio-fuels for the ubiquitous pyrotechnics.

Some find this disingenuous.

"The event likes to bill itself as radical self-sustainability, but really it's an orgy of consumption," said Jack Haye, a computer modeler at Industrial Light and Magic in San Rafael. Haye was exhibiting one of his sculptures at Burning Man.

"There is way too much utilization of new materials that are wasted. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars -- or millions -- are spent in Costco in August getting ready for this?"

The festival is scheduled to finish tonight on a spiritual note, with the burning of a 102-foot-tall Temple of Stars. This is the fifth year in a row that Petaluma artist David Best, and scores of volunteers, have created an exotic plywood structure that is built and lit on fire in remembrance of the dead.

He seemed equally impressed by the swarming crew of Best volunteers. "The process of the building of the thing is anarchic. I couldn't detect any order or reason in it. It was totally organic," Thompson said.

"Here you are. It's hot, in the middle of the dust storm, godforsaken. And there are 800 to 1,000 people, watching it, helping build it, being emotionally affected by it. It could only be done here."

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